


Exasperated

by Dragonsquill (dragonsquill)



Series: Hobbit ABCs [5]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Erebor, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Prompt Response
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:52:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3935806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsquill/pseuds/Dragonsquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt response for Balin, Exasperated</p><p>In which a young Balin is sent in search of a sulking little brother in a tight spot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exasperated

Balin loved his baby brother. Truly he did. 

After all, no proper dwarf would feel anything except deep loyalty and lasting affection for his family, and Balin was a very proper young dwarf, intelligent and well-behaved.

Most of the time.

But loving Dwalin didn’t mean that he couldn’t als find him incredibly, annoyingly, overwhelmingly _exasperating._

“Dwalin, you can’t spend all day jammed under the table!”

Balin was lying on his belly in Erebor’s Nobles’ Library, vainly attempting to hold on to the shreds of his young dignity with his bum and legs sticking out from under one of the heavy benches. 

“Watch me!” came the grumpy return growl of Dwalin, who had jammed his ever-lengthening body into a tiny natural alcove in the mountain wall.

An alcove Balin, in his foolishness, had told Dwalin about years earlier.

When Dwalin was _smaller._

And _fit_ better.

He would never do anything nice for his brother ever again if it meant this sort of embarrassment later.

“Your legs will fall asleep!”

There was a shuffling noise, as of a young dwarf attempting to stretch a sleeping leg that had nowhere to go. “I don’t care.”

“You’re too big to fit in there!” And wasn’t that annoying, a dwarf fifteen years his junior and nearly his height, without a single chin-hair to his name, and Balin already had to tilt his head back a bit to glare him in the eye. Dwalin was a snot-nosed brat well on his way to being a snot-nosed giant.

“Am not.” This growl was less petulant and more sniffly.

Balin sighed and abandoned any pretense at dignity entirely, inching forward on his belly among the dust bunnies, until only the tips of his new boots were visible and he could see properly into Dwalin’s hiding place.

Balin’s brother was jammed in to tightly that he was amazed Dwalin could draw breath. He looked for all the mountain like an angry pillbug topped by bushy black hair.

“What’s wrong?”

Dwalin glared over his knees, and there was a definite sheen of tears in his eyes. “Nothing.”

Balin gritted his teeth and counted patiently to 10 in common and Khuzdul, then common again, just in case. If he just reached in and grabbed the kid to drag him out, he’s probably end up snapping Dwalin’s stubborn spine in two. Mother wouldn’t be pleased. “Did Thorin tease you again?”

“No,” scoffed, as if Dwalin couldn’t imagine his friend doing such a thing (today).

“Were you injured at practice?”

Dwalin’s knobby knees shifted as he puffed his chest out. “Of _course_ not,” as if Gloin hadn’t wiped the floor with his face two days earlier.

Balin huffed, running low on ideas and high on exasperation. He was hungry, and there would be no dinner forthcoming until he could deliver Dwalin to the family table, preferably with clean hands and ears. “Did . . . you . . . read a sad story?”

A sniffle, but then, “No,” because Dwalin was remarkably tender about sad stories, especially since their grandmother died. She’d been terribly fond of him, and baked the best biscuits in the mountain, no contest.

Balin heaved a sigh of such magnitude he was surprised he didn’t lift the bench and table right off the ground with his ribcage. “Then _what_?!” he demanded, wiggling a hand into the little indentation and thwapping Dwalin soundly on the leg. 

Dwalin snarled and tried to hit back, but his elbows were too well pinned.

Balin chuckled, low and maybe a little evil, but that was his right as an elder brother. “Told you.”

“Shut up.”

“Come out and I might. Stay in there, and I’ll start reciting the lineage of King Thror, just for you. With all the dates and consorts and second sons I can think of.”

This was a serious threat. Dwalin hated recitations to the depths of his grumpy young soul. When Dwalin didn’t immediately emerge, possibly taking care of their parents’ absence to use the new colorful language he was learning in his first fighting lessons, Balin knew something was very wrong.

His voice gentled, his heart beating faster. He did love Dwalin. He did worry about him, as a proper brother should. Most of the time, at least. “Dwalin?”

“….I went home from practice early ‘cause Gloin got hurt, and his mum was at our place.”

“So?”

A snuffle. “So, she brought a cake.”

“That was . . . nice of her?” Balin’s mind raced, trying to think if someone was injured or had died…was Amad injured?! Is that why Glora brought her a cake?! “You love her cakes.”

Dwalin’s voice dipped low, thick with utter betrayal. “I do. Which is why it’s so…it’s so…!”

“What?”

“Mean! She said I couldn’t _have_ any! She said it was for some stupid _lady’s night_ they’re having and it wasn’t for _dwarflings_!”

For a breath, silence.

And then Balin made a noise of such deep and devoted disgust that it should probably be recorded in a book somewhere.

If Balin could have knocked a fist against Dwalin’s head, he would have. “Get out of there!” he cried, grabbing for a boot and pulling.

“No!”

“I can’t believe you’ve had me lying in the dirt-”

“I’ll tell the librarian you said that!” The boot kicked, but Balin held on and twisted, making Dwalin yowl.

“-worried something was wrong, over _cake_!”

“THE BEST CAKE IN THE MOUNTAIN!” Dwalin roared, though his voice broke three times in the roaring.

Balin jerked hard and scooted backwards and Dwalin howled and Balin wrapped his ankles around the leg of the chair and _pulled_. 

If he cracked Dwalin’s spine, so be it.

The brat _deserved_ it!


End file.
